I take this quote to heart straight from the book
“You can choose to do more or less”-pg 24.
I choose more.
2 Likes
I’m thinking it’d be good for you to read Forever.
Start with Chapter Three, then start reading it from the start. That’d give you a better understanding than having it be fed to you, piece-meal, from people’s application of 531 in their logs.
Mostly everyone will make adjustments to their benefit (ideally), but that might mean cutting corners or doing things when it isn’t necessarily ideal because that’s the only way they’ll get things done in relation to everything else they have in their schedule.
Therefore, if you let other people’s logs be the only thing that informs your understanding of 531 those discrepancies will make cobbling it together really difficult as sometimes people will have to do something that breaks any sensible mould just to make it fit their life.
To answer the question more specifically. Yes. But, see the above caveats. So, the real answer is: it depends on how you do it. There can be three rest days on a four day split and four on a three day split if you also decide to do your conditioning on your training days.
I think common sense applies in regards to when and why any certain form of conditioning would be appropriate. I’m thinking of another thread right now with regards to cardio and lifting that I didn’t feel the need to dip my toe into.
I don’t necessarily struggle with the definition, but here’s a few example of conditioning
- Weighted Vest Walk, 2-3 miles (easy conditioning)
- Airdyne 20-30 minutes (easy conditioning)
- 1-2 mile run (easy conditioning)
- Prowler Sprint,
- 1/2-3/4ths of your bodyweight, 10-12 sprints x 40 yards
- Can be easy, can be hard. If you are puking or gasping for breath it wasn’t easy
- 1/2-3/4ths of your bodyweight, 10-12 sprints x 40 yards
- Hill sprints (hard)
Much like with nutrition, you can plan your training any which way you like. Ultimately, if the plan is good or not will be relayed back to you by your performance and how you feel.
I think I was going to hard with intensity, and/or volume before, because compared to my old training sessions, I feel worlds better and other variables that affect results are mostly unchanged. A lot more saffron courtesy of it being Christmas, but I don’t think that’s a silver bullet.
Jim often writes/talks about the “suburban commando.” I don’t think he ever wants people to be conditioning queens but to always be physically ready. If you can’t, for example, spontaneously shovel snow from a driveway, then you’re wrong. I think he would agree with your attitude.
To add: Maybe log this stuff as conditioning. I wouldn’t recommend taking me as an example if we are talking about conditioning but I even log 30 minute walks as easy cardio. It all adds up.
Objectively smart, I’ve been mulling about logging less though. Most of the value I derive from this community has very little to do with figuring out the puzzle pieces of my own training and/or nutrition. I think that’s true for a lot of us. Spend five minutes being honest with ourselves and we all know where the mistakes are being made.
4 Likes
Sunday 2020-12-27
AM Bouldering
PM Lead-climbing
Felt cranky in joints pulling on plastic in the morning but had made plans to climb with people and I wanted to meet up socially. This morning with a friend that just wanted to climb with me alone at the Y to be exposed to the minimum amount of people (we were alone in the bouldering hall). Evening, people less conscientious about the pandemic.
Kept within my limits and came out unscathed. Actually surprised myself with my abilities today. Did a technical send that murdered me weeks back and today it was “easy” (comparatively)
Will need to rest for two days from climbing now me thinks.
1 Like
I appreciate reading that a lot. That gives me some calm
1 Like
I think I want to elaborate on this a bit, as a matter of self-therapy.
The main argument to log less is to spend less time here. And why spending less time here is a potentially good thing for me is something I want to unpack.
Let me be clear, I find a great deal of meaning interacting with you all here.
But, there is a downside to it too. One might think it’d be one of the usual suspects, such as the time spent that could have been spent elsewhere, but no, the meaning itself adequately offsets that. Furthermore, I enjoy writing, and this happens to be the place where I write the most. If I didn’t do that here, I’d have to find another avenue to do so. Here, I get to write about things I know, with people I’ve come to care about from afar.
Or, and perhaps not a usual suspect to some, but responding and reacting to notifications. I noticed early that whenever I have an account wherein there’ll be little blobs of unreads and activity stuff on my avatar I am regrettably unable to defer that until later. I have made it a habit of not checking my phone before bed, because if I read something that I can interact with I start composing my thoughts into text. I’ve tried to consciously practice “I’ll just do that later” but failed enough times to solve the problem in other ways by employing other habits.
No, the main reason for me is that sometimes (not every time), I go into a complete tailspin around diet stuff and leanness stuff. And that sucks. Because when that happens
I just have to write out that the recent trigger had nothing to do with the T-ransformation Challenge. It was just a stray post that has made my mind occupy itself with dietary nonsense. When rational thinking such as “this doesn’t matter to me now” or “the difference would at best be miniscule” doesn’t bite (not related to meal timing/metabolism interplay either) I wonder if the best solution isn’t to stay away for a while until these trigger-reads have a lesser impact on me.
Just to be clear then,
And why spending less time here is a potentially good thing for me is something I want to unpack.
means reducing the odds of encountering a tailspin.
But also, I want to be here. And that’s just some honest cognitive dissonance stuff :3
3 Likes
Been doing these weekly, they’re great.
Haha, I prefer Widowmakers and PR sets…
1 Like
Easier to do that when other people can see your whole training picture and call you out on it though. I’ve definitely avoided (a few) bad decisions because I knew putting them in my log would get me some grief.
1 Like
Monday 2020-12-28
Rest day
Tuesday 2020-12-29
Rest day
My training days are all out of whack >_<’ Might have to skip a workout or do a gap workout to get back to a schedule that suits me after the holidays.
Saw my physio today, we did not have time to look at both the leg and the shoulder and focused solely on the shoulder as I felt that was a joint/hardware issue and my lower body ails seem more muscle/software oriented.
My AC joint was completely locked up. After some manual therapy it has now come loose. Still feels a bit tight, but I have several degrees extra of ROM during a Neer test.
Rehab is,
- overhead pike style presses with my knees elevated on a chair/bench.
- essentially a dumbbell cuban rotation with my shoulder pressed up against a bench to keep it from tipping forward.
Took a long walk out into the woods to try and keep my favourite paths from disappearing entirely underneath the snow
9 Likes
Have you ever considered starting a blog? The barrier to entry seems low enough. You can potentially develop a strong relationship with readers. Maybe even share the link on your log to develop a base, because I’m sure users here would check it out.
Highly recommend Cal Newport’s works again.
Should I relink that video from Jim not too long ago? 
Kidding aside, it sounds like you’ve been pursuing a potential remedy for these behaviors. I bet that will help even if you have to wait awhile and self-educate in the meantime. Also imho easier to tell others to not worry about the 1%, but it’s harder to take that advice yourself.
Also, that second photo looks like something from a dream! 
What would you recommend I start with?
I don’t follow, what does 1% mean here coming from you?
Happy we still have luscious forests here. So much is different though, in just a few years. A river cuts across my city. It’s meant to be frozen months back. Ordinarily, New Year’s would be observed next to it as they’d build a stage out on the river. Now, not even a sheath of ice. It’s not even been cold enough for them to artificially create ice rinks as they’d just melt. Makes me wonder about the future, if having kids would be egotistical.
The answer is yes, many times, with many different ideas as to what it’d be about. I’ve purchased a few domains even, gotten started, and then not continued. So, I’d have to do something different. Having a base would be nice, but setting up a comment system and analytics that protects people’s privacy isn’t trivial at least back when I last set out to so it.
Have instead considered to amass a few texts first, and then port it to a blog so I have some skin in the game already and a backlog of material for when my inner voice is silent 
So jelly of your landscape. I would do walks/runs in the wild all the time. No wonder you picked bouldering!
I really don’t get how people are still in denial about climate change. Apart from all the scientific data, you can observe it right before your eyes. I currently live in middle to northern Germany and I remember in my childhood we’ve always had white winters. Now it’s been years without ‘real’ snow let alone white christmas…
1 Like
There were enough people who believe the earth is flat to hold an entire convention for them in 2019. People can be very dumb, particularly when their beliefs make their lives easier or give them a feeling of rebellion or of being smarter than others. See also: chem trails, anti vaxxers, homeopathy etc. etc.
2 Likes
Oh yeah, I sometimes forget how dumb humanity is. Case in point is the anti corona movement (anti as in don’t believe or against the governement rules) here. That brought out some really bright fuckers, haha.
1 Like
I less forget, and am more just constantly amazed at when I feel I’ve identified rock bottom only to glance over and see someone happily digging away.
5 Likes